Residents criticize hospital plan process

Many New Orleans residents used a meeting scheduled Wednesday for reviewing plans for a state teaching hospital in lower Mid-City as an opportunity to air myriad complaints about the process as a whole.

And when they weren't talking big picture, few had good things to say about the three schematic options that state-paid architects unveiled for the proposed $1.2 billion, 424-bed facility that would cover the acreage bound by South Claiborne Avenue, Tulane Avenue, and Galvez and Canal streets.

The primary differences are whether the patient towers would be located along Canal or Tulane and whether clinic buildings or parking decks would front Galvez, the street that will divide the state campus from the proposed U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital.

All the plans call for two construction phases, with the first phase concentrated toward Galvez.

The plans are available on www.lsuamc.com. The site allows public comments through May 13.

Representatives from the National Trust for Historic Preservation echoed previous criticisms that the designs show very little physical sharing between the state hospital -- called the LSU Academic Medical Complex -- and the proposed Veterans Affairs hospital.

Mary Howell, a lawyer whose office is near the footprint, put it more bluntly. "We feel like victims of a bait-and-switch, " she said, recalling talk of the necessity to build the state's replacement of Charity Hospital next to the VA facility.

Howell said the federal planning process -- agreed to by city, state and LSU officials -- is to blame.

"I don't see how we can have informed decision-making if we can't talk about the project in totality, " she said. From the beginning, planners and the community should "consider this when connected to the VA, when connected with the Charity building. The neck bone is connected to the ankle bone, and we are being prevented from being able to look at the entire impact."

The "tiered" process set up under federal law divided discussion of site selection, the design phase and the future use of the old hospitals downtown. The public meeting Wednesday was held to open the public-input period required in "tier two, " the design phase. The VA held its tier two hearing earlier this month.

Jack Davis, representing several groups pushing for a third-party review of the entire project, mocked architects describing the largely suburban design as a bridge from downtown to Mid-City. "I'm hearing that to transition into a neighborhood, we have to tear down that neighborhood, " he said.

Members of Deutsches Haus lamented that the plans show the old structure being razed.

Some Tulane advocates warned that the state risks abandoning downtown and leaving Tulane's medical enterprise on an island, particularly if the second phase is delayed or never built. That would leave a vacancy on the property's southeast end.

Dr. James Moises, formerly an emergency room physician at Charity, suggested that LSU leaders and other public officials pushed for a new hospital without ever considering rebuilding Charity as a viable option.

Nonetheless, state officials defended the site selection and the plans as the best option for returning quality medical care to New Orleans. LSU System Vice President Dr. Fred Cerise promised a new model that would attract researchers and clinicians to a hospital for both former Charity patients and insured patients who rarely used the old hospital.

A lone Canal Street business owner, meanwhile, said he welcomes the redevelopment. "This is a good thing for our community, " Chuck Perret said. "This is a good thing for health care in our community."

Architects said the schedule calls for clinics to open in 2012, with the hospital to open in 2013. The state, however, still has not completed its financing plans for the project.